Bharti Airtel On the Verge of Losing More Than 50 Million Subscribers Due to Minimum Recharge Plans

In its bid to increase the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), a key industry parameter, Bharti Airtel removed the lifetime recharge packs from its portfolio and also did away with the talk time recharges as well. In place of this, Bharti Airtel introduced minimum recharge packs which the subscribers will have to opt in if they want to continue with the telecom provider’s services. However, this has come at the cost of Airtel losing its subscribers. According to a new Business Line report, Bharti Airtel might be on the path of losing 50-70 million subscribers in the coming months due to this new step. But there’s a catch. Airtel was in expectation of this result, and in some ways, was even hoping for it because it would help the telco in weeding out the non-paying customers.

4G Smartphones Another Way of Acquiring Subscribers for Airtel

Airtel was aware that a large number of SIMs were not being used by the customers who were not generating any revenue for the telecom operator. This new move, instead, will ensure that only high paying customers who are ready to pay for Airtel’s services will stay on-board and will continue to make recharges. An Airtel executive said about this, “I think we may shed a few customers — 50 million to 70 million — as some of them may not exist at all or these could be second SIMs. That’s ok… why carry the burden?”

Now there is a new challenge for Airtel; the telecom operator will need to acquire more subscribers who are ready to pay and not just come for the freebies that the company offers. Recently, Airtel has explored another possibility of acquiring more subscribers by getting them to use 4G smartphones. The Airtel executive said, “There is also scope for increasing the ARPU by giving better and more services, more content with partnerships and so on.”

It was back in October when Airtel decided to put a hold on the lifetime free incoming calls plan for prepaid customers because the customers were also not paying for outgoing services. However, the implementation was met with hostility from the subscribers. Instead of some of its prepaid tariff plans, the telecom operator introduced minimum ARPU plans and asked the subscribers to recharge with a minimum of Rs 35 plan to keep the services running.

Trai Issues Directive Regarding Minimum Recharge Plans

The ARPU, which is a crucial industry parameter took a nose dive for the incumbents like Airtel, Idea and Vodafone after Reliance Jio entered the telecom market in September of 2016. This year, Airtel’s ARPU was pegged at Rs 100, while Vodafone Idea’s ARPU was Rs 88 while the ARPU of Reliance Jio was significantly higher at Rs 131.

After realising that the companies needed to improve their ARPU to deal with their cash deficit situation, telcos introduced the minimum recharge plans. However, amidst rising complaints from customers, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) issued a directive to the telecom operators mandating the companies to release a clear, informative message to the subscribers. However, as per the law, the telcos are entitled to discontinue a plan which is more than six months old.

Reported By

Must Read

Setting the stage for rolling out advanced memory technology to meet the growing demand for faster, more reliable performance across a wide span of applications, Samsung has now said it began mass producing the industry's first 4-bit SATA solid-state drive

According to GlobalData, a research and consulting firm, 5G networks will take over most of Asia and the USA by the year 2020 while the European countries might just have to make do with the current 4G network. A new

With telecom operators struggling to get the attention of consumers, the consumer stands to win amidst all the competition. Cut throat competition amongst telecom players in the country has got cheap and affordable mobile and data usage plans for users.

Recent News

Samsung is all set to launch Galaxy S10 series of phones on February 20 right before Mobile World Congress which kicks off a week later. As far as the rumours are concerned, Samsung is likely to launch three phones under

Vodafone after its merger with Idea Cellular has definitely increased its capex and is moving ahead with intensity to counter the competition in the telecom playing field. However, the introduction of the minimum recharge plans has triggered a subscriber fallout

Last year Asus debuted one of its most prominent offerings in India, the Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1. The phone went on to witness massive sales and became one of the highest selling mid-range smartphones in India. Asus has also

Leave a Reply

183 Comments on "Bharti Airtel On the Verge of Losing More Than 50 Million Subscribers Due to Minimum Recharge Plans"

Sort by:
newest |
oldest

Thamilan daa

December 30, 2018 4:35 pm 4:35 PM

Idea Tamilnadu prepaid provides an option to stop the auto deduction of Rs.24 for validity extension every 28 days by dialling *369*240#

The digit before is number ZERO

ReplyHide Replies ∧

Vipin (Mumbai)

December 29, 2018 12:34 am 12:34 AM

Telecontalk should bring back section of most commented article on their homepage back.

It is easy to find trending articles

ReplyHide Replies ∧

Avinash Meena

December 29, 2018 3:51 pm 3:51 PM

+1 i agree

ReplyHide Replies ∧

Vishal | Chennai

December 28, 2018 6:31 pm 6:31 PM

Off topic what about RCom Jio deal? It got rejected by dot . Now what will happen? Is there any other option for Jio . Already Jio network is suffering from congestion. RCom going to face insolvency?